How to kill a soul
by SirensLullaby24
Summary: Nadir Khan pays a harmless visit to the Shah's infamous Angel. Short Kay-based oneshot, during their days in Persia.


1875, Tehran, Persia.

Night had already fallen at the Grand Palace of the Shah, when I returned from Mazandaran. My peculiar friend had created such a storm amongst the workers of the White Palace, that I had to spend all day in the province of the city to inspect them.

Honestly, I hadn't seen him all day today. Perhaps, I should pay him a quick visit, before returning to my home, I think lazily. It's been a while since we've shared the hookah, after all. And so, I walk towards his chambers slowly, my body and spirit calm.

Silence. He must be-surprisingly-asleep.

I open his heavy door, however, and find the lamps still burning. I hear him from deeper inside and I advance towards the muffled sound.

I could never expect what waited for me once I entered: my friend, the boy I had come to call a son, fallen on the bed, bloodied from head to foot. The bed itself and the floors around it polluted by the scarlet horror.

"Allah! What have you done?" I cry out in despair.

"Leave me, daroga…"he rasps.

"What the devil's happened?"

"I said leave me…"

"There's blood everywhere!" In all my years as a chief of police, I had never seen such massacre and my hysteria was getting the best of me.

"Shut your fucking mouth will you?"

He doesn't shout. He simply lays there, on the bloodied sheets, like the true cadaver he resembles. But his is not the behavior of an assassin: the deformed visage is watching me, pleading for my mercy, as one lone tear slips down his sunken cheek.

I sit beside him, but say nothing. What could I possibly say to such a destroyed soul?

"Why are you here, daroga? Go to your son."

"You are the one who needs me now, not Reza."

He gave a defeated sigh.

"If the Shah sees all this, he'll be furious."

"Go on, then. Run and tell his Majesty." His rage was too easy to spark immediately and he jumps from the bed like a man possessed, tugging at his bloodied shirt.

"Go and tell him," he shouts, "tell him what happens after the eunuchs declare: _By the order of His Majesty The Shah, the shadow of Allah on earth!" _He mocks angrily the order given right before his twisted work in court begins.

I suspect what's about to happen, but to my utter embarrassment, I dare not leave him.

"Does your precious Shah know how I suffer? Does he know the feeling of having a life in your hands? Of killing it? Of watching the light flicker from their eyes? Of feeling like God himself?"

"Calm yourself…"I whisper, almost numb from terror.

"Who's the God between him and me, Nadir? I am the one to hold life in my hands! I am the one to end it!"

I fruitlessly stretch one arm to restrain him. "This feeling you describe is dangerous. You are not a God, Erik."

He shakes his head like mad. "No…no…But I'm a devil! And I know my trade too well!"

A pause. He's lost his head!

"Does your Shah know that I can't bare it anymore? That I'm becoming a true cadaver?" He scratches his face in despair. "I'm _dying_, daroga! I die more and more every day! My hands, _smell them_!"

His skeletal hands smell of nothing but soap.

"They stink, daroga! They stink! I smell like a corpse! And the blood...The blood was everywhere! On my hands, my terrible face, everywhere! It penetrates my skin! And I wash! Once, Twice… I try to scrub it off, but the stench remains!"

He's in delirium.

"I see myself in the mirror, daroga. My flesh is rotting!"

He's crying harder now. His arms, raised towards the skies, tremble.

"I've finally become the Angel Of Death!"

He falls down, exhausted.

"Everything I touch, Nadir, dies. My destiny is destruction. My art, man's torment. I cause all the pain I've suffered."

His breaths are shallow and the air in his chest whistles.

"May God help your soul…Your heart is very ill, my son."

His golden eyes turn to look at me. "Let's not talk of what I've become. You must understand, daroga, that I have suffered, and there are scars we don't reveal unpunished. I'm vicious, an object of shame and scorn; what does it matter? There's nothing to do for it."

With fatherly care, I wipe his sweat. "Despite everything you describe, you lower the head still. Your eyes are watering."

He gives a small, painful laugh. "No, Nadir. The masks of plaster," he turns to look at the mask at his feet, "the masks don't blush in shame. I've done what I've done. And I will accept willingly my punishment, in this life or another."


End file.
